Day 1: Remembering Women and Children who have died violently in Ireland

Posted on November 25, 2017 at 10:41 AM

Yesterday, Women’s Aid launched a new report ‘Femicide Watch 2017 (Republic of Ireland)’. The report outlines details of eight women who have died violently in the Republic of Ireland this year. Six women were killed in their own homes. This year has also seen 6 murder trials before the courts relating to the murder of women. The 2017 Report builds on the work of the Women’s Aid Femicide Monitoring Project which started in 1996. Since then, using newspaper records, the organisation has charted violent deaths where the victims are female. The Femicide Watch 2017 shows that women are more likely to be killed in their own homes and by someone known to them. In over half of all cases, women were killed by a man that they had a current or previous intimate relationship with. The 2017 report also shows that in cases of manslaughter, intimate partners are more likely to serve 3 years less in prison that other men who kill women.

Key Statistics from the Report

Eight women have died violently in the Republic of Ireland in 2017. 6 women were killed in their own homes.

Since 1996, 216 women have died violently in the Republic of Ireland. 16 children were killed alongside their mothers.

137 women were killed in their own homes (63%).

In the resolved cases, 95 women were murdered by a partner or ex-partner (56%).

Another 20 women (12%) were killed by a male relative and in 35 cases (20%) women were killed by a man who was known to them. 21 women (12%) were murdered by a stranger.

In the 20 cases where a woman has been killed by a male relative, 16 were killed by their sons (80%).

In total, 88% of women were killed by a man they knew.

Women of any age can be victims of homicide with women under theage of 35 making up 49% of cases in Ireland.

There have been 22 cases of murder suicide in this time, where the killer has killed a woman and then himself during the incident or shortly afterwards. In 21 of these cases the killer was a partner or ex of the victim.

On average, current or former intimate partners convicted of manslaughter are sentenced to 2.8 years less than other men convicted of manslaughter of women.

We launched the report at a seminar yesterday on the eve of the International Day Opposing Violence against Women (25th November). Speakers at the seminar addressed issued relating to the prosecution of domestic violence and domestic femicide cases, the links between domestic violence and intimate partner homicide including the danger time of separation, risk assessment and best practice for domestic homicide reviews and risk assessment in other jurisdictions. Full presentations will be made avaialble online shortly.

As a part of this project we encouraged people to remember lives lost and to stand in solidarity with women living with abuse by wearing a purple ribbon. People at the event and around the country wore the symbol and many others changed their profile picture to the purple ribbon as a mark of support.

You can download the report here and read our full press release here.